“I could feel something cold stalking my heart. It was fear. They all begin this way, I thought, with pledges of love.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“When faced with the illogical, one must expand the sphere of logic to include rules of logic for that which is not logic. This is the only possibility in a world that works according to the rules of rationality.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“Oaths, in my opinion, infernal or not, ought to be short.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“After all, he meant well. Foreigners never seem to understand how little attraction an island of damp fogs, cut off from civilization, and a provincial little court has for us Parisians, who inhabit the most cultivated, powerful monarchy in the world.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“Daughter, your presence is a stay and consolation to me. Begin again in the Tenth Book; tell me, how does Aristotle define true happiness?” “Father, he tells us that true happiness is found in contemplation, whereas the common idea of happiness as pleasant amusements is fostered by the courts of tyrants.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“Why the Romans, Father?” I asked him one afternoon. “Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead,” he answered.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“Are you aware of the penalties reserved for freethinkers? I could send you to the block. Good.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“I mistrust mountebanks—especially of the female variety.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from The Oracle Glass
“Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything for its own convenience.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, quote from Freedom from the Known
“You can't change the things you've done. It's now and the here on out you've got control of.”
― Mindy McGinnis, quote from Not a Drop to Drink
“It’s when the crickets stop singing that you know the enemy is near and the battle is about to begin.”
― Amy A. Bartol, quote from Under Different Stars
“Their excesses were largely responsible for the anti-Jewish sentiment which permeated the British forces in Palestine. Those excesses had produced other fruits, however. They had helped disgust the British public with Britain's role in Palestine, and thus played an important role in leading Clement Attlee to his decision to leave.”
― Larry Collins, quote from O Jerusalem
“The better you know something, the less you remember about how hard it was to learn. The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose.”
― Steven Pinker, quote from The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.